Finally – real climate refugees? Funding axe may force climate scientists to ‘leave the country in order to find work elsewhere’

The funding for all government programs related to climate change is set to shrink at an alarming rate, going from $5.75 billion this year to a scant $500 million in the next four years.

The fallout from the new government’s budget is still being seen in Australia, but it is already obvious that climate change is a loser when it comes to funding. Prime Minister Tony Abbott has long been skeptical of global warming and the science behind it, but with his new-found legislative power it seems as though he is looking at making that viewpoint into law. According to critics, there is no longer even the pretense of working towards limiting the effects of climate change as the government works to protect the interests of fossil fuel producers and businesses. Whether or not there is a real connection between big business interest and the new budget, Abbott and his cabinet have taken the axe to climate change research and are poised to fundamentally damage all scientific research in Australia in the process.

The funding for all government programs related to climate change is set to shrink at an alarming rate, going from $5.75 billion this year to a scant $500 million in the next four years. Additionally, the Emissions Reduction Fund which is meant to help lower greenhouse gas emissions in Australia is going to be reduced to only $1.14 billion. This was devastating news after Environment Minister Greg Hunt had gone on record promising to provide $2.55 billion to fund the program. Nevertheless, it is not only climate change programs that are feeling the pinch of the Abbott budget.

The Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Australia’s national science agency, will have $111 million worth of funding slashed over the next four years, which will affect an uncertain number of programs and a loss of tenth of the CSIRO workforce.

The outlook is bleak from the standpoint of scientists and researchers in Australia, many of whom will probably leave the country in order to find work elsewhere.

115 thoughts on “Finally – real climate refugees? Funding axe may force climate scientists to ‘leave the country in order to find work elsewhere’”

Hmmm, wonder if this has anything with various Australian universities’ sensitivity lately? May be another kind of feedback is getting their attention now….good on ya Mr. Abbott….now if only everyone else would join him in cutting of the alarmist funding!

Haha, right. I have some wood that needs split, & they can give a hand with rebuilding an old shed, & maybe taking down a dead birch. But to call what they do right now work is an insult to fat, lazy pigs.

I love how any article related to climate change alarmism is required to contain either “alarming rate” or “unprecedented”, though often both. Nothing is normal to these psudoscientists.

When they put together a grocery list at home, they must look through the fridge in a panic, horror painted across their goatee-adorned, bulbous faces as they shriek, “the milk is being consumed at an alarming rate!!!” Looking in the cupboard: “…and Danny’s consumption of Lucky Charms is unprecedented!!!”

I’m beginning to wonder if these maroons are simply frustrated drama students who wanted to be arts majors but their well-meaning parents pushed them into a “science” degree.

“The Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Australia’s national science agency, will have $111 million worth of funding slashed over the next four years, which will affect an uncertain number of programs and a loss of tenth of the CSIRO workforce.”

wait a second…. austrailia has climate scientists??? I thought those dudes were just bloggers and media hounds making the case in the media not with actual data….. Or… ummm… wait… does austrailia have climate science???

It has always been noted that when you pay for something, a lot of that thing becomes available. If this had been money spent on “aliens among us”, we would have had at least 30 different species of same identified in the research. But further investigation would be warranted according to papers about same.

What, does Australia really believe that there is Australian climate science, as opposed to American climate science, New Zealand climate science? Exactly why do they believe they need local climate science research?

Its hard to see a positive here but maybe like many professionals who have lost their jobs their could upgrade their skills. Like an entry level statistical course – Steve McM? Or how about ethics – maybe Peter Gleick is available.

On another thread some months ago, I asked where are all these unfit-for-any-purpose scientists in the 100s of thousands going to go when their industry collapses (for those cliscis that think collapse means 800 years as in the collapse of the West Antarctica glaciers in a recent paper, I was thinking only a year or two – it is happening quicker than we thought). Can anyone here provide an estimate of the number of climate scientists and the many more undergrads and grads? Can we estimate from the number of papers? Is there a trade association listing? I wonder if we include also the employment in the “alternative energy” sector how many – few million?

At 2013’s Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada conference, the biggest mining industry conference globally, I met a young lady who was working on her bachelor’s degree and she interviewed me on possible career choices. She said she was studying geology with the climate science option. We exchanged a couple of emails and I told her to get out of the climate science option and into mining exploration or mining geology, that the world is overrun with climate scientists who, before too long, would be unemployed. She never replied – I guess I made her mad. I don’t have the heart to send her a link to this article.

I take no credit for my prescience. It was 100% probability that this was going to happen. It may take a while, but I’m predicting that, since Australian policy gave so much of a boost to this stuff in the EU and US, the axing by Australia will similarly encourage, first the most sensible of governments (Germany, Canada, Japan…) and then, in chain reaction, the rest of the gangue. Pardon the pun. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangue

The bulk of the cuts to the ARENA budget are for future projects which had not even started yet, including, ironically proposals from the mining companies to cut their CO2 emissions.
Cuts to university based programs are relatively light.

There is absolutely nothing but rank hypocrisy stopping ridiculous shills like Mosher from writing cheques directly to whatever gadfly “scientists” they think need funding; but you keep your filthy paws off of my money. Unlike climate “scientists” & their overpaid noisemakers, I get paid to turn less valuable things into more valuable things, & if someone doesn’t want the more valuable thing that I can create, I don’t cry for handouts.

Stark : “Unlike climate “scientists” & their overpaid noisemakers, I get paid to turn less valuable things into more valuable things, & if someone doesn’t want the more valuable thing that I can create, I don’t cry for handouts.”
Actually the people most likely to lose jobs are those like you. The bulk of the cuts are in subsidies to renewable energy companies, so it will be the manufacturers and installers of solar panels and the like who go, so the losers are their engineers and technicians.

> Steven Mosher says: May 18, 2014 at 1:23 pm It would be far better to keep the budget intact and then fund better science.

Sorry Steven, but actions have consequences. Bad actions have bad consequences. The hacks have caused all science and scientists to be painted with the same brush and the public does not like what they have been forced to pay for. Why should they trust scientists who have abused their trust for decades and vindictively stifled the objections of the good scientists ?

I wonder why there are so many of these in so many cultures ?
a) hoisted with his own petard
b) what goes around comes around
c) karma sucks
d) as you sow, so shall you reap
e) sow the wind, reap the whirlwind
f) like the taste of their own medicine
g) actions have consequences
h) Do to others as you would have them do to you
etc

Perhaps the members of the warmist cult should listen and learn rather than being all “settled”.

In short, If one believes that the government buys science and buys the results it wants, and if one believes that scientists are only in it for the gold, then fund them to support sceptical findings. ..

Unless of course, one believes that bought-and-paid-for “science” is a bad thing. Clearly, Mosher does not. Telling, that.

Leave it to Steven Mosher to openly advocate for fundamental immorality, so long as it preserves the pie from which his piece is cut.

jimi dalek:
and who do you think is going to produce the wealth that is stolen to provide subsidies?
sorry for the loaded question- i’m giving you the benefit of the doubt, though i don’t know if that’s merited.

“Something had happened, a thing which years ago had been the eagerest hope of many, many good citizens of the town. And now it came at last: George Amberson Minafer had got his comeuppance. He’d got it three times filled and running over. But those who had longed for it were not there to see it. And they never knew it, those who were still living had forgotten all about it, and all about him.” – Orson Welles (opening narrative in the movie “The Magnificent Ambersons” of 1942)

To put that into perspective, 5.7 Billion Australian dollars, that is:
1. Equal to South Africa’s annual defence budget
2. Nearly three times South Africa’s annual Science and Tech budget combined!
3. Half South Africa’s annual Police and Public Safety budget.

It sure is a hell of a lot of money to spend on hot air.
Cost of climate science to the sheep – billions
Cost of climate “science” to Science – unknown, untold, and unforgivable.

Paul Homewood says:
May 18, 2014 at 11:31 am
On a slightly more serious note (hick!).

I gather the US climate research program costs $2.5 bn /year. I gather, in the funny money you old colonials use, this would be about half the Aussie figure of AS$5.75 bn.
—————————————————————————————–
Crikey Paul you’re not all that well informed are you. :-)
We dropped the “funny money” that we inherited from the colonial British (Pounds, shillings and pence based on 12 divisions) more than 50 years ago and changed to dollars that uses the decimal system.
Currently US$2.5 billion equates to AUS$2.67 billion. Last year we were at parity.

Steven Mosher says:
May 18, 2014 at 1:23 pm
It would be far better to keep the budget intact and then fund better science.

For example: fund better observation networks. Fund updating the proxies. Fund all the science that skeptics say we need..

In short, If one believes that the government buys science and buys the results it wants,
and if one believes that scientists are only in it for the gold, then fund them to support sceptical
findings.
+++++++++++++++
I think Sceptics do not like the idea that taxes are used for political reasons. Climate science is a big fat dirty tax payer funded waste of money. So, no, I think you have it wrong. Why do you want other people’s money being spent to argue political agendas? Just turn off the spigot… sooner rather than later.

gnomish – I am simply trying to get some accuracy into these comments. Why does no-one ever check anything? The idea that Australia spends $5billion on climate research is an obvious nonsense. I was pointing out that most of that figure is money for ARENA (look it up) for industrial projects (and subsidies) for alternative energy sources. Whether the subsidies are justified or not is a separate question, but IMO if these companies cannot make a profit without subsidy, then they should not be in business. Only a tiny fraction of that figure is spent on university based research. There will be cuts of several hundred staff at CSIRO, but that is over all sciences.

Just curious!
Could somebody point to any perceivable and real actual tangible on ground benefits that climate science, both alarmist advocacy and skeptical has actually provided to mankind over it’s 30 years of existence?

Sure, we might know quite a lot more of the forces that drive the climate, both local, regional and global and even climate related satellite technology advances but in actual on ground benefits to people and governments and nations, I can’t think of any single real benefit where climate science has advanced the practical on ground interests of mankind.

Climate science in it’s entirety, in practical benefits to mankind has been almost entirely detrimental and negative to mankind’s advancement in nearly every sphere it has touched.

Guess I should qualify that last bit as the carpet baggers of the so called but un-renewable tax payer mining wind and solar energy industry and the usual green thuggery have benefitted immensely at everybody else’s expense.

Climate science is distinct from meteorology which has advanced by quite significant amounts over the same period.

The main thing that worries me about this news is that Australia has been spending $5.75B per year on global warming contracts. Yikes! Scale that up to other countries, and no wonder the warmists are so religiously passionate about their assertions.

I hear billions are spent on this or that… but what does that exactly mean? Who is spending what and how? I see results but nowhere near the costs incurred. Those involved should be glad to provide concrete and detailed accounts of their expenses.

I was hoping for a redux of Mawson Ship of Fools. May not now.
The ship-of-fools made for such newsworthy hilarity as the Alarmists kept trying to downplay the growing sea ice “problem” in the Southern Ocean.

I doubt many of these displaced climate scientists will find work in another country. They are all silo builders and as such don’t welcome guests easily. Climate scientists, watch your friends and collaborators disappear when you start networking overseas. Gollum with the ring when the walls fell.

Steven Mosher says (May 18, 2014 at 1:23 pm): “In short, If one believes that the government buys science and buys the results it wants, and if one believes that scientists are only in it for the gold…”

…then one should keep one’s money out of the government’s figurative paws and invest it oneself.

Finally, we have grown-ups, actual adults running Australia after the gross debacle of Gillard/Rudd. Common sense barely sees the light of day in politics but one has to hold one’s breath to see whether or not those newly voted-in senators will actually support this level of sanity without listening to the hysterics and raging of those slurping from the taxpayer’s trough for their millions. We shall see.

Especially when that $4.5 billion was completely wasted. And even that wasted spending was just used to lobbied the government to waste a further $10 billion per year on even more useless wasteful climate change endeavours..

Absolutely ridiculous that this situation ever existed in Australia, never mind the total $358 billion wasted on green energy and climate change research word-wide last year, 0.5% of GDP.

Cut these guys off the public purse. Let them use their own money to further their own agenda.

Mosher, I will respectfully disagree. It is time for governments to stop funding research at the levels they have, and to stop trying to pick winners via subsidies. Time to end the corruption. Focus on adding value.

Great move by Tony Abbot. Lets hope that this is the beginning of a new leadership in the west and that Nigel Farage has the guts to do the same in Great Britain when he eventually finds himself in that position.

It’s a start, I suppose, but half a billion dollars is a lot of dosh for funding a problem you don’t believe exists. Perhaps if it is used to finance real Climate research. So anything with the above mentioned alarmist catch phrases, will be disqualified.

there is a joke in my neighbourhood that the Govt has taken a few billion from Big Climate & handed $20 billion to Big Pharma, but that is another story.

tens of billions over their lifetime being spent on the still-problematic F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, which has bipartisan support, is also considered by some as money wasted as well, given the promises to cut back on spending. btw the UK is being warned as well, plus Reuters reported recently that “Italian lawmakers favour halving spending on F-35 jet” because of the poor state of that country’s economy:

18 May: UK Telegraph: Ben Farmer: RAF’s £70 million F-35 fighter ‘may be
cancelled because of poor performance’
Many fear that the F-35’s stealth technology has already been overtaken by
sophisticated new radar
Britain’s long-delayed £70 million stealth fighter may have to be cancelled
because of its poor performance, according to analysis by a senior US Air
Force officer…

anyway, cutting back on so-called Renewables might not be enough to stop spending in that area if the following report today turns out to be the tip of the solar iceberg!

19 May: Australian: Ean Higgins: Fire risk as solar firm goes belly up
A QUEENSLAND company that sold allegedly faulty circuit breakers that caused at least 70 burnouts in rooftop solar panel arrays has gone bust, leaving tens of thousands of homeowners at risk of electrical fires.
Advancetech, based on the Sunshine Coast, went into receivership on Friday, only four days after Queensland Attorney-­General Jarrod Bleijie ordered the immediate recall of 2
Installation of rooftop isolators are compulsory in some states, and hundreds of thousands of solar rooftop arrays were installed under state and federal schemes. Most of the Avanco isolators, designed to automatically break the circuit and shut down solar panels if they become overloaded, were sold in Queensland, but some were also sold in other states. The NSW government is expected to issue a press release today advising of the Queensland recall and receivership.
A spokeswoman for NSW Fair Trading said “there have been ­approximately 57 incidents of varying degrees of severity in Queensland and up to 13 failures in NSW”, and it is understood some of the fires caused wall and ceiling damage.7,600 Avanco-branded DC solar power isolators imported and sold by the company…
“Though the recall is a mandatory recall imposed by Queensland it … is considered to have national effect,” she said. “The Queensland Electrical Safety ­Office … is understood to be ­investigating options for action against company directors.”
NSW Fair Trading assistant commissioner John Tansey said: “Advancetech has done some corporate tap-dancing on Thursday and Friday.”
Mr Bleijie said the Avanco branded isolator “was found to have an internal fault that can lead to overheating and fire’’…
The ESO also issued a recall notice for PvPower-branded DC isolators, sold by DKSH.
DKSH advises of the recall of its isolator on its website and ­includes a form for electrical contractors to claim the costs of ­replacing them with another brand.
When The Australian repeatedly rang and emailed Advance­tech, starting during business hours on Friday, calls immediately went to voicemail. No ­response has been received and the company’s lawyer, Michael Green, declined to comment…
A homeowner in Wagga Wagga, NSW, Martin Loy, had a fire on his roof in early March caused by an Avanco isolator, which was detected almost immediately and put out by the fire brigade. “A number of other residents have the same problem and they could have fires which could lead to their houses burning down,” he said.
Mr Loy couldn’t understand why Advancetech or the NSW government had not contacted every affected installer and homeowner to warn of the ­danger

MSM manages to keep a lid on most problems with Renewables, but here are a couple of pieces which suggest too many cowboys were unleashed upon an unwitting public in the rush to save the planet from CAGW:

Feb 2013: Business Standard: Dutch roof fire warning for 650,000 solar panels
Press Trust of India
The Hague, Feb 19 (AFP) Hundreds of thousands of solar panels are at risk of setting roofs on fire because of an electrical fault, Dutch authorities and media warned today, with 15 roof fires already reported in Europe. Now-bankrupt Scheuten Solar Systems has reportedly sold at least 650,000 of its “Multisol” panels in Europe and 15,000 in the Netherlands. “These solar panels have a faulty electrical connection which constitutes a fire hazard,” the Dutch Food and Goods Authority (NVWA) said in a statement. “People who have these dangerous solar panels on their roofs are advised to disconnect them in a safe manner,” it added. The problem is with the connection between the panel and a junction box at the back which could cause an electrical spark, damaging the box and causing it to smoulder. “The sparks could jump onto the roof and cause a fire,” the NVWA said…
Based in the southeastern city of Venlo, Scheuten Solar Systems went bankrupt last year and since then at least 1,000 damage claims have been lodged with the company’s receiver, the paper said. The fire hazard can be neutralised by repairing or replacing the junction box, the paper said. However, the NVWA warned that “at this moment there’s no good way of fixing it,” and urged users to have the panel disconnected by professionals…

2 pages: Sept 2013: Gannett Media: Daily Journal: Rooftop solar panels challenge firefighters
Efforts to combat the blaze were hampered in part by some 7,000 solar panels on the roof of a 266,000-square-foot warehouse…
“The panels obstructed us from doing any roof operations,” Delanco Fire Deputy Chief Robert Hubler said. Officials said they feared the panels, which remain charged even after being disconnected, posed electrocution dangers.
And they do, says Ken Willette, division manager for public fire protection at the National Fire Protection Association. They also present several other challenges, such as preventing roof access and hindering the ability to provide roof ventilation.
The panels also can add weight to the roof and contribute to a potential collapse, said Paul Sandrock, chief fire marshal for Camden County and director of the county’s fire academy.
The center of the roof at the Delanco meat-and-cheese distribution center caved in during the blaze, fire officials said. If proper codes and procedures are followed, Willette added, “then there’s a minimal risk of collapse due to the weight of the solar panels on the roof — (but) still a potential.”
Solar panels have been a concern in the fire community for about five years, according to Willette. In June, the Solar Energy Industries Association ranked New Jersey No. 2 for solar energy installations during the first quarter of 2013, behind California…
The Division of Codes and Standards, Kramer said, has issued a directive telling local construction offices to notify fire services of permits for solar installations.
Willette said no national standard guides state and local methods of approaching solar panels during fires…
As the economics surrounding solar energy improves and its presence grows, he added, there should be a discussion about developing standards…
“People put them on roofs because of space restrictions,” Sandrock added. “And that’s what we’re up against.”

Actually the people most likely to lose jobs are those like you. Gurgle gurgle gurgle gurgle.

That might be vaguely interesting if you had some clue as to either what I did or what you were faffing off about. Next time you feel compelled to write a word or two of your [trimmed] nonsense in response to me, kindly shut up.

Eamon Butler on May 18, 2014 at 5:41 pm
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
When I worked in Africa we called it “dash” not “dosh” and our government forbade us to provide “dash” to our workers… Presumably because that was Governent jurisdiction … Oh how many times I was told by locals that Canadians and Americans just didn’t understand how to do “business” in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East…. But then along came climate science and Governent Incentive Programs and I tried and tried to understand the difference…. Perhaps both need investigation. The latter being the more serious.

k scott denison says:
May 18, 2014 at 5:26 pm
Mosher, I will respectfully disagree. It is time for governments to stop funding research at the levels they have, and to stop trying to pick winners via subsidies. Time to end the corruption. Focus on adding value.

#######################

let me see if I can make it clear to you guys.

Today 5B is spent on climate studies. And most of you disagree with the output of the studies.
And most of you think that the answers are bought and paid for.

Examine 2 options.

Cut the 5B
Spend the 5B a different way.

Cut the 5B: well as the post argues these guys will just leave australia and go some other place.

Spend the 5B some other way. Lets see, how about some money to Jo Nova to help communicate the
skeptic climate message. How about money for archibald to do his sun non sense. Shit, they should use the money to fund Willis. How about fund somebody to redo Manns work the correct way.. Or money to fix the australian temperature record.. or money to do site surveys of all the stations. Or money to redo Cooks study.. the right way..or money to criticize Model outputs. or money to accelerate the CERN cloud studies.

See you guys need to be more diabolical/ creative

So maybe you dont spend the whole 5B..

But jeez how many times have people argue[d] that the science should be done differently.
You got the power. You got the money. spend it smarter.

I don’t ever see reason to credit Lewandowsky with any good sense, but he did have the sense to flee Oz just before the deluge…… every CAGW worshipper there will be lookng with envy at Stephan’s good (or lucky) timing, and wondering, “how do I continue with this gravy boat in UK/Europe?”

A guy like Mann, who proudly cheerleaded Marcott’s false-bladed hockey shtick, I wonder about how much cash is paid to graduate students as opposed to personal This Old House renovations. And does he also have a Saudi university Plan B, like Phil Jones invoked?:

There is a long way to go for proposals to become reality.
The Australian Senate is not currently controlled by the Government in the House of Representatives. The Senate is a house of review. On present indications, many of the proposals will fail or if they pass, they will be modified in bargaining.
If the Senate obstructs too much, the government can call a double dissolution, a complete new election for both houses.
Today’s polling indicates that the government would do badly iin a DD. However, polls change and the defunding proposals are too new to have sunk in with voters.
These defunding proposals are a smaller part of proposed reforms and they do not swing the result. Voters are more concerned with a proposal that they pay a fee to visit a doctor, the accumulated fees being earmarked for a $20 billion investment fund to pay for increased medical research.
In a sense, on balance, the proposals do not reduce scientific funding so much as redirect it to priorities with more probability of returns in the future. Like, global warming has only a few basic questions to be answered, then there is little incentive to continue. But medical research is more open ended, with too many questions still to be answered.
The Opposition parties to date have simply played immature but populist games, mainly like repeating that PM Abbott promised before the election not to make some changes. They are correct, but unhelpful.
The whole topic needs several months to start to sink in and allow better understanding than now, particularly by the Opposition with its bloody-minded blocking intentions instead of constructive policy suggestions.

If the figures at the top are annual figures, then spending on climate science will be cut by around 5 billion a year. Massive cuts in climate change non-science are welcome, but I would hope that the money would be switched to real science, which creates all kinds of benefits. But I’m not entirely optimistic about that, though.
Chris

Mosher sez: It would be far better to keep the budget intact and then fund better science.

Spoken like a true suckling, Stephen. I don’t object to the funding my government has spent on solar research, or weather satellites. But there must be a payoff for this research, in a real economic or social sense. The constant drumbeat of alarmism from climate science is harming our society, making fearful idiots of our young, and insufferable totalitarians of our academics. Funding needs to be scaled way back. Far fewer Ph.Ds should be the goal, far fewer people setting their lives work on a tack of becoming public teat suckers. We private taxpayers just can’t afford you. You don’t provide enough value.

At least the great money waste of the AGW sink-hole will be drastically reduced. Combine this with the coming regulation changes, that will take the shackles off the economy, and you have a winning formula for economic recovery and prosperity. Now do the same in the U.S.

Patrick says: May 21, 2014 at 3:56 am
“You seem to claim that you know, care to back that up with some actual figures publically available?”
I’d note that people are happy to bandy around figures like $5B with no evidence at all. But if I disoute it, it is I who have to dig out the data. That is how it usually is.

But OK. Here is a doc from a sceptic guy, who gives references. He has a table on p 5, where he tots up $800M. But that is padded. Half is carbon capture and storage, which is actually subsidising industry research – they are looking for commercial opportunities and the Gov’t backed them. It’s not climate science, and won’t be cut. Then he’s included 57M for CSIRO’s Energy Transformed flagship. This is about energy efficiency, but is the vehicle for CSIRO’s long standing coal and electricity generation research. Another 79M for “Marine and Climate” but that includes the Barrier Reef, fishing research etc.

Sorry, forgot the link. I’ll add a quote“It is estimated that about $150 million of the {C’wlth] research funds are being spent directly on climate science i.e. analysing temperature records, looking at the behaviour of oceans, modelling to predict global warming and investigating how carbon dioxide is causing global warming.”